


Lie Low

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-18
Updated: 2007-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:35:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sirius, I need you to set off at once.  You are to alert Remus Lupin, Arabella Figg, Mundungus Fletcher – the old crowd.  Lie low at Lupin's for a while . . ." (GoF, 713)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lie Low

They sat on a riverbank, grass pressing softly against ankle and thigh. Others might have seen the span of sky above them, heard the chatter and spark of the river's progress south. In some other moment there might have been birdsong, the far-off laughter of someone's child, the rumbling progress of a scarlet train, a castaway thought for a half-eaten sandwich, a wistful comment about the merits of tea.

But with grass pressing prickle-soft to aging skin, there was only the slowing of time, the inhale and exhale of breath as friends sat beside one another, lost in contemplation – ink and rats and the scent of teenage socks tumbling cogwheel over memory into fingers that still trembled as they had when friends first kissed. There were no words to pour into the solid three inches of space between elbow and elbow, no comical spells that could bridge thirteen years of barbed-wire distrust, twelve months' cautious separation. Instead there was grass, green as envy, green as irises, perfectly formed and flattened and rare to eyes used to stone, to gazes grown accustomed to loneliness, not company.

So fingers plucked nervously at willing blades, shards of green to bleed across fingertips, channeling breath into whistles and smiles. Hands rested cautiously beside hips that ached when the moon slid into some diminished sky, and everywhere, everyone, each thought _green, such green_.

"How long?" Remus asked at last, his voice sounding rusty, as though opened at last to a hope he'd locked away.

"Two weeks?" There was pain in the hitch of Sirius' shoulder, in the jut of his collarbone against air that moved free. "Not long. Not long at all."

Remus nodded and glanced toward villages ill-guarded a lifetime ago by ineffective spells. "Two weeks, then," he murmured, and reached to touch the back of a stranger's jail-scarred hand.

Sirius flinched, then grabbed for Remus before he could pull away. "Sorry, sorry, stupid of me – I – "

"Padfoot," Remus murmured, grave understanding in every weighted word.

A breath of what might have been laughter in some easier life snagged on the cusp of the waiting afternoon. "Let's not go inside yet."

"No," Remus nodded. "Let's not." And their elbows grazed clumsily as they clasped hands and waited for grace enough to say the rest, or map affection, or relearn bodies, or sit with grass pressing sweet-sharp and patient against ankles and gratitude, against lovers at rest.


End file.
